Artsy Wednesday: Disney

I've been wanting to try a waterfall manicure for a while, and while I don't think I quite nailed it on the first try, I did end up with a neat manicure.

I used Disney's Snow White as my inspiration, with my middle nail as the skirt of her dress, my index and pinkie as the sleeves of her dress, and my ring as her face/lip/hair color.  I think this turned out a little eerie looking, but frankly the original Snow White story is pretty creepy, so I'm down with how slightly spooky this turned out!

Check out the other Artsy Wednesday bloggers; they all do some pretty gorgeous work!

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

M.A.S.P.O.O.A.S.E
Makeup and Masala
Every Little Polish

B&W Nail Art Challenge Day One. Get-in-shape: Geometric!

What did the acorn say when it grew up?  Gee, I'm a tree! Har har har; that's a favorite joke of my dad's, who was a math teacher for years.

Enough of that corniness!  On to the B&W Nail Art Challenge, Day One: Geometric! I used Julep's Eileen and Wet n' Wild Ebony Hates Chris to create this mod-squad, colorblocked, squared off, super hip, '60s chic manicure.

Groovy, baby.
Check out today's B&W Nail Art Challenge looks!

An InLinkz Link-up

Artsy Wednesday: Inspired by a Designer

BOB MACKIE.  How can you not, when looking for inspiration for a nail polish look?

Feathery swirls, bright metallics, sequins, thank goodness for Bob Mackie!

Check out the other Artsy Wednesday bloggers; they all do some pretty gorgeous work (and we have two new participants, Makeup and Masala and Every Little Polish)!

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

M.A.S.P.O.O.A.S.E
Makeup and Masala
Every Little Polish

Julep's Faye: Sun Worshiper

I chose the Julep Boho Glam box for July, thinking I'd take a chance on the color Faye.  It's definitely nothing I'd ever see in a store and think, "That color was made for me!"  Julep called it a bronze, but I don't think of bronze when I see it.  It's the color of pale milk chocolate, with a gold flash in the sun.  I really do think of the term sun worshiper when I see it.

It's like nothing I've ever seen before, and I'm glad I took a chance on it.

The takeaway message is, give a color a shot if it's like nothing you've ever seen before.  It might just surprise you with how much you end up liking it!

All products in this post were purchased by me, and all opinions are my own.

Artsy Wednesday: Sewn Patches

I've been a bad blogger lately, but I have a good reason!
Here's my reason:

My nails, in front of our chicken coop, while I stand on the front porch of our new house!

And here's my sewn patches manicure, close up!  I went for a gingham theme with this one, to adequately reflect the fact that my boyfriend and I have moved onto a lovely piece of land where we can raise our chickens and generally enjoy the outdoors!

Anyway, apologies for being AWOL for a while; with moving and renovating (we got a foreclosure), I've been too busy and too hard on my hands to do any nail art.  That changes today!

Check out the other Artsy Wednesday bloggers; they all do some pretty gorgeous work!

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

M.A.S.P.O.O.A.S.E

Artsy Wednesday: A color I usually hate

I tend to really dislike caramel colored polish against my skin; it can lean so yellow as to be atrociously ugly, or so red as to look almost ketchupy (or make my nails look like wounds, gross!).  I tried to harmonize a caramelly colored polish with my skin by adding metallic peachy tips; I think it turned out okay!  

Check out the other Artsy Wednesday bloggers; they all do some pretty gorgeous work!

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

M.A.S.P.O.O.A.S.E

Artsy Wednesday: Inspired by Graffiti

I knew I wasn't going to be able to really emulate graffiti with this manicure; I've never been that good at sharp outlines, so I wanted to take the "inspired by" of this week's theme and run with it.

I was fortunate enough to win a set of MASH nail art brushes from a giveaway Set in Lacquer ran, and I wanted to give the fan brush a shot, to add artistic strokes of bright colors to my  nails.

I used Julep's Eileen as a base, and the It Girl April colors, Eden, Abbie and Mackenzie as the bright bright bright graffiti stripes.  The white base really made these colors pop, and the manicure kind of reminds me of fruit stripe gum.

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin

Maria's Nail Art

Valiantly Varnished

Unnaked Nails

Nail & Polish

Beauty Gnome

Lacquered Lunatic

Quick NOTD: Julep Melissa and Portia! Also FACEBOOK!

I finally started a facebook page for my blog!  You can follow me here: https://www.facebook.com/Accent.Nail

I've also added a Bloglovin' link to my blog, just to your right over there --->
As you've likely read, Google Reader is biting the big one on July 1, so if you want to follow my shennanigans, Facebook or Bloglovin' are your best bets.

As for my nail of the day:

I was in a seashelly kind of mood this time around, so I put Portia tips on 2 coats of Michelle.  The visible nail line doesn't bother me with this one, mostly because the glittery tips make the look intentional, instead of just a too-sheer polish with no undies (scandal!).

I got Portia in Julep's Spring Mystery Box (I'm a sucker for those mystery boxes), and really like how well the iridescent glitter reflects even over a pale color like Melissa.

10 Day Nail Art Challenge Day 10: New Year's Eve!

Happy New Year!   I had a wonderful 2012, and I hope 2013 is good to all of you.  Have a wonderful time celebrating tonight!

 Cobalt blue, color-changing shimmer, holographic tips and stars, does it get any more festive?

10 Day Nail Art Challenge Day 7: Holiday Marble

Today's holiday marble was supposed to be a water marble, but I'm sick and don't have the patience for a water marble, so I did a drag marble instead!  I made little sugarplums on my nails, and even created a little video tutorial to go along with it.

I'm going to have to figure out why the recording is choppy, but it's a start!

10 Day Nail Art Challenge Day 6: Holiday Movie; The Santa Clause

I love The Santa Clause; a Christmas movie about doubt and belief, magic, generosity, good fun, family, falling off the roof, burnt turkey, ugly sweaters, snow globes and more? What's not to like!?

My little Santa suit nails are actually pretty easy to do, as evidenced by this video tutorial!

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Snow/Snowflakes

Snow at dusk, is there anything better?

Julep's Viola made the perfect base for HITS Mari Moon Artsy, to create a dusky, multicolored sky look.

OPI Pirouette my Whistle, the real inspiration for this manicure, gave the perfect glittery depth to my snowscape, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Julep Emma for snow on the ground and the moon in the sky finished off this glittery winter wonderland.

Check out the other Day 2 entries!

Artsy Wednesday: Christmas

I can't believe Christmas is right around the corner; wasn't it July just recently?

This manicure isn't going to make any kind of sense without a backstory, so here it is: Bees.  My manicure is a tribute to a very large Secret Santa exchange that happens over the internet, wherein the Secret Santas and Santees regularly make jokes about sending and receiving bees (can you imagine receiving a box full of bees in the mail? Terrifying!).

I was lucky enough to get a Santa who sent me a fabulous gift, including 4 Julep polishes I didn't own (a feat in itself, since I own something like 30!), some fabulous nail art glitters, and a nice black polish (for bee striping, of course!)  I set out to make a bee-like manicure with the bee colored portions of their gift, and made a honeycomb/stripey design for my Christmas manicure.

I've participated in this Secret Santa exchange for 2 years now, and it's so much fun to send gifts to people across the country (or the world!), get thoughtful and fun gifts from a relative stranger, and basically add even more excitement to the holidays.  So, I have a bee manicure, because it wouldn't be Christmas with out bees!

Bzz!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Lacquered Lunatic

Artsy Wednesday: Drag Marble

You guys are going to have to excuse the slightly crummy pictures today; it's been raining like crazy, and my old junky Nikon doesn't like my lightbox, so my lighting options have been limited.  On that note, what kind of camera do you like to use for close-up photos?  I could use some recommendations!

Anyway, back on track, today's Artsy Wednesday is a drag marble.  A drag marble involves slathering a thickish layer of a base polish on, then dabbing a bit of another color and dragging a needle through it to make designs.

I had Pretty & Polished Pretty as a Peacock on, and didn't want to take it off because it's so pretty, but didn't want to cover it up either.  Jelly polish to the rescue!  Zoya's Frida was a perfect base for my drag marble, and Julep's Sienna (the perfect gold polish), was a nice accent to the teal base.  My technique could use refining, as I basically just made little sunshiny splats, but it was a pretty neat process.

You do end up with a lot of polish on your nail; even after a 30 minute dry time and a fast-dry top coat, I wrecked both my thumbs :(  So, set aside a lot of time for a drag marble!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Lacquered Lunatic

Artsy Wednesday: Saran Wrap nails!

Crinkling up saran wrap and smashing it onto your polish sounds like fun, doesn't it?  I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to see if I could salvage a chipped manicure with this method.  I don't like crackles, another way to hide chips (even though I think they look like chipped polish anyway), so this was a method I was excited to try!

First, my old manicure.  Not bad for almost a week of wear, but still pretty raggedy:

Next, with a layer of polish painted on and then saran wrap smashed into the wet polish (done one nail at a time, to prevent issues with dry polish getting gummed up):

LOVE IT.  The peeks of blue through the copper?  Perfection!  I'm going to have to try different color combos, I love this style!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Polished Genius
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Lacquered Lunatic

Artsy Wednesday: Inspired by the season

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."-George Eliot

I love fall.  The colors, the smells, the cool air, my birthday, fun holidays, good food, cozy clothes, migrating birds.  Fall makes me feel calm, like the world is how it's supposed to be.

To celebrate, I now have a super super cute apple manicure!

It's like back-to-school, pies, changing leaves and a harvest wrapped into one.  Also, since a large portion of the Eastern U.S.'s apple crop was wiped out this year from an April frost, it's something of a memorial (no worries though, trees that are well rested should produce even better than usual next year!).

I don't think I've been happier with a manicure in a long time; every time I look at my nails I get a little surge of delight!   

Hooray for fall!

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

 Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Polished Genius
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Artsy Wednesday: Wedding Nails

Well sportsfans, I've discovered my polish Achilles heel; french manicures.  I wanted to go all traditional with this week's theme.  I figured, since I'll probably end up having a non-traditional wedding, this'd be a great opportunity!  And it was!  I just wasn't very good at seizing the day.  

To make the best of it, I'm going to claim these are for a winter holiday wedding, held in the evening! (Because the sun hasn't been out in days and I haven't been able to fix my lightbox!)  Without further ado, hand-waving or explanations, my take on wedding nails:

And just for fun, I threw on a ring so you could get the full theme effect:

I'm really honored to be able to participate in Artsy Wednesday, and you should all DEFINITELY check out these other, very talented Artsy Wednesday participants.  

 Pretty Purple Polish

Lab Muffin
Maria's Nail Art
Polished Genius
Valiantly Varnished
Unnaked Nails
Nail & Polish
Beauty Gnome
Kaka Beauty Blog

Skittles Kick

I've been on a real "skittles nails" kick lately, using a bunch of different colors for each manicure.  I think I just enjoy looking at all the different colors/finishes of the polish, plus a skittles manicure means I don't have to pick just one polish!

My right hand features a bunch of different golds.  From thumb to pinky: 

• LA Colors Antique Gold: a butter London Wallis dupe!  This is one of those ugly/beautiful green golds that are just neat to look at, even if they are really weird.
• Julep Sienna: possibly the best gold polish ever.  Opaque in one coat, good wear, and a really neat white gold look to it.
• Wet n' Wild The Gold and The Beautiful: a greenish leaning gold glitter, it doesn't have as much visible nail line in real life.  2 coats.
• OPI Rising Star: from the Burlesque collection, which may be OPI's prettiest collection ever.  I only have a mini, and I wish I could get my hands on the full-size set, but scouring eBay for it doesn't seem worth the time when I have all this other polish to use.
• Zoya Tiffany: this is such an unusual orangey pinkey goldey glassfleck polish.  It looks a lot like Zoya's Rica, but leans way more pink and gold, while Rica leans more orange.  2 coats got me to opacity, which is really nice for a polish with a moderately sheer formula.

 Silver on the left, to go with the gold on the right! On my left, from thumb to pinky, I've got:

• Zoya Trixie: great formula, 2 coats
• Nicole by OPI Make a Comet-Ment: A scattered silver holo, slightly thin but no visible nail line after 2 coats
• Zoya Harley: A tricky formula, I had to use 3 coats to make sure this wasn't patchy, and I'm not sure the final result is flawless, but the color is just beautiful.
• Essie Power Clutch: I just got this in a 6 polish set from Ross (for less than $18!!), and thought it'd be the worst color on me, but I think it actually looks fantastic.  I did 3 thin coats to make sure there were no bald spots, but it dried like a dream and was a great consistency.
• Color Club Magic Attraction: Another Ross find, this one has holo silver glitter and small pinkish glitter in it; I don't have a lot of silver polish, so this was what I went with in a pinch, but it has great coverage after 2 coats.  It is still a little gritty to the touch after a coat of Out the Door though, but that doesn't bother me much.

So much more fun to look at than just one color!

4th of July giveaway!

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday.  It's so wonderfully low-key; go to a parade, eat a hot dog, watch some fireworks, wave a flag, go to bed.  It's easy, it's fun and it celebrates something I really like (I really do like America).

I can't spend this 4th of July with my family in my hometown, as it falls on a Wednesday and it's just not practical to fly 800 miles one way for a single day.  My hometown has an annual parade where half the city is in the parade, and half is watching.  Then we'd have a barbecue with whoever is around for the day, and watch the city's fireworks display.  You can actually see the fireworks from my bedroom window.

I'm sad I can't be there, but I'll have fun in my new town, going to a festival and seeing some fireworks here. It's time to start some new 4th of July traditions!

To celebrate further, and to share my total love for the 4th of July, I'm giving away 3 nail polishes to one winner!  Julep's Molly is the red,Maybelline's Colorshow in Porcelain Party is the white, and FingerPaints Electro-Midnight is the blue (and it's magnetic!).  Simply fill out the Rafflecopter widget below to enter; this giveaway will end on June 26th, and the winner will have 24 hours to e-mail me their address.  If they don't contact me in the allotted time, I'll pick a different winner.  U.S. only for now, sorry! Good luck!
4th of July giveaway!

Julep June Mystery Box!

I love the Julep mystery boxes; every once in a while (usually around a holiday, or just for fun), Julep offers a box for $19.99 (they provide a link to the box and a code to make sure it is discounted to $19.99) that has between $60 and $200 worth of product.  You don't know what you'll get, but I have yet to be disappointed!

I have bought 4 mystery boxes including this one, but the first three were smaller boxes.  I still loved the colors, and the boxes prompted me to sign up for the Julep Maven program because I liked them so much, but this month I got the big box!!

I got the Pedi Creme (I have never had such soft feet, I swear!), their basecoat, fast dry topcoat, Alyson (a camel colored creme), Amy (a turqoise blue), Sienna (a white-gold that is STUNNING), and Megan (mermaid blue!).

I also got their plumping lip gloss in Arousal (terrible name, nice product, but you definitely feel the burn from the plumper!), the Julep Reveal nail serum, and a pomegranate body creme and scrub.  Not too shabby for $19.99, huh?

You can get the monthly Julep box for just $0.01 by using the code MAVENINTRO when you sign up at Julep.com!

Disclaimer: the links in this post are referral links for my account with Julep.com